The present invention relates to a confectionery product, particularly chewing gum, as well as to a process for manufacturing the same. In this product, at least one of the flavoring, aroma and/or active ingredient is released over a period of time, so that during consumption of the product, the effect of these materials is of long duration and does not disappear after just a few minutes as is the case with commercially available chewing gum products, with the tasteless chewing gum mass remaining in the mouth. The invention, though, is not restricted to confectionery products such as chewing gum, but also embraces products such as bonbons, caramel, hard candies, dragees, gel-and gelatin-confectioneryproducts and similar articles which contain flavorings, aromas, and/or active ingredients as described below and to a process for their production.
Chewing gums with sustained delivery of flavor are already known, but they have the disadvantage that they are comparatively difficult to manufacture and that they have not satisfied expectations of sustained delivery of flavor.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,795,744, for instance, describes a method for manufacturing a chewing gum according to which a polyvinyl ester is dissolved in a solvent, a flavoring is dispersed in the resulting solution, and the solution is thereafter mixed with a second solvent which is miscible with the first solvent but is a non-solvent for the polyvinyl ester, thereby causing the polyvinyl ester to precipitate in the shape of small particles which encapsulate the flavoring. The product obtained by this method is separated from the solvents and added to a chewing gum base, which then releases flavor over a period of time.
This method has the obvious disadvantage that large amounts of a solvent have to be handled, because precipitation of a polyvinyl ester in the form of discrete particles from concentrated solutions is not possible, and that the preparation of the solutions as well as the separation and drying of the precipitated product is relatively time consuming and uneconomical.